Hog Heaven (15 page)

“Your old friend from yesterday. I bought some gum, remember?” He hoped he really had bought some gum.

“Oh. Yeah. I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

“What’s the hold-up?”

“I’ve been doing some thinking.”

Crabtree couldn’t remember a single time in his life when a woman had said “I’ve been doing some thinking” and it had turned out well for him.

“Thinking? About what?”

“About my boy playing ball at your school. And how much that’s really worth.”

Crabtree didn’t say anything. If he did say anything, he was afraid it would devolve into a raging, bile-spewing rant—possibly with a threat of violence. He could feel a sharp pain directly between his eyeballs.

“I done some research,” Vera Spillar said. “Crazy how much money is involved in college football. The schools make big bucks. The coaches—hell, most of them is millionaires. The TV networks cash in, too. Then you got all them companies selling shirts and mugs and bumper stickers and whatnot. But what do the players get?”

“What about the scholarships? They get a free education.”

She snorted. “That ain’t much compared to the serious money everyone else is raking in.”

Crabtree took a deep breath.
Calm. Have to stay calm.
“You don’t consider ten thousand dollars to be serious money?”

“Oh, sure, it is to me. But it probably isn’t to a guy like you.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“You think I didn’t figure out who you are? Do one of them Web searches for ‘University of Middle Texas football’ and your name pops up in half the posts.”

Crap. Not good. But he wasn’t going to be manipulated by a Wal-Mart cashier, for God’s sake. “I don’t have time for this. We got a deal or not?”

Her tone was all business. “Double it to twenty grand or Colton’s sticking with Oklahoma Tech. And I want
all
of it up front. Send me the other half of those bills you got, plus ten grand in bills you ain’t torn up.”

“You sure are bossy all of a sudden. Maybe I’ll just look for a different lineman.”

“Fair enough. Good talking to you.” He could tell she was about to hang up.

“Wait!”

“I’m listening.”

“You want me to drive all the way back down there again? Screw that. You come and get it.”

“Ever heard of FedEx, genius?”

Seventy-three-year old J.D. Evans had been clerking at convenience stores from Florida to Texas for the better part of four decades, and truth be told, he enjoyed the work. You met all kinds of people on the job. Rich folks and poor folks. People from countries with names that J.D. couldn’t pronounce. Tourists and locals. Assholes and salt-of-the-earth types. Drunk college girls who didn’t mind giving an old man an “accidental” peek down their blouses. Illegal day laborers wanting beer and microwave sandwiches. Doctors, lawyers, Indian chiefs. Interesting bunch.

Of course, “interesting” wasn’t always a compliment. You had people coming in that ended up creating a problem one way or the other—maybe intentional, maybe not. See a guy sprinting for the bathroom and you know there might be a nasty clean-up job later. A toddler trailing after his mom might bust half a dozen jars of applesauce on the floor. Kid wearing a loose jacket in warm weather was planning to shoplift. Man wearing a hoodie and sunglasses at night might stick a gun in your face and demand all the cash. J.D. had been robbed six times over the years.

People stopped to ask all kinds of questions, too. How do you get to the state park? Where’s the best barbecue ’round these parts? Any strip clubs in the county? So it wasn’t a surprise when an enormous, unshaven cedar chopper came into the store just before noon and asked several questions, starting with, “Was you working last night?”

J.D. had seen this big old boy before. Several times. Billy Don was his name. Usually Billy Don was an easygoing fellow who tended to load up on beer, chewing tobacco, and assorted snack foods. But tonight he appeared gravely serious. He hadn’t even glanced toward the pork rinds or the Slim Jims.

“I sure was,” J.D. said. “Till closing at midnight.”

“So you was here when the guy got decked in the parking lot?”

That was another “interesting” aspect of working at a convenience store: Fights in the parking lot. Seemed like there was at least one a month. Some of the stores J.D. had clerked were neighborhood hangouts, with punks and thugs and regular old kids gathering outside nearly every night. Lot of drinking and drugging going on, and the next thing you know, someone gets his ass whooped. Like the episode last night, with some guy getting clocked on the side of the building.

“I sure was,” J.D. said again.

“You see what happened?”

“No, sir. Happened around the side.”

J.D. glanced out the window and saw Billy Don’s running buddy sitting in his old Ford truck, waiting.

“You ain’t got any cameras over there?” Billy Don asked.

“No, sir. Wish we did.”

The big man looked like he didn’t know what to ask next. Finally he said, “Think any of your customers saw it happen?”

“Don’t appear that way. Cops asked, but nobody said nothing.” By now, Billy Don looked downright distraught, so J.D. said, “Was that poor feller a friend of yours?”

Billy Don nodded.

J.D. could only imagine what Billy Don might do if he caught up to the sorry son of a bitch who had cold-cocked the little guy in the Prius. Probably a lot worse fate than would happen to the man through the legal system. So J.D. was all for it. A piece of garbage like that needed to be dealt with.

“All I can tell you is what I told the cops,” J.D. said. “I don’t know who done it for sure, but I got a pretty good idea.”

A customer entered the store—a man dressed in khakis and a golf shirt—so J.D. paused for a moment. After the customer had made his way to the back of the store, J.D. told Billy Don all about the tall, drunk, obnoxious, redheaded man.

Marlin was having lunch at the crowded Kountry Kitchen with his best friend, Phil Colby, when two things happened almost simultaneously: Marlin’s cell phone vibrated with an incoming message from Tatyana Babikova, and a tall, redheaded man walked through the front door of the restaurant.

Marlin had just begun to read Tatyana’s message when Colby—who had heard all about the incident on the widow’s ranch two days earlier—said, “Oh, here we go.”

There was a tone to Colby’s voice that made Marlin glance up. He saw the redheaded man standing near the cash register, waiting for the hostess to seat him and the two men standing beside him. Twins, from the look of it, although one had a goatee. The Bryant brothers.

Marlin simply watched. None of the three men had spotted him yet. Marlin set his phone down. Tatyana could wait.

“Weems, right?” Colby said.

“Yep.” Marlin had only seen Weems in person the one time—from a great distance. But he’d seen photos, and the redhead was definitely Weems.

“They look like rejects from one of those cable-TV hunting shows with a bunch of backwoods hillbillies,” Colby said. “Where most of the locals have more guns than teeth. And their most valuable asset is an outboard motor.”

Marlin waited. He could feel his shoulders tensing up. He wondered how Weems would react if he noticed Marlin.

“Look at the feathers in their hats,” Colby said. “I’d feel like a major tool walking around like that. What is it, Halloween?”

Marlin was dedicated to his duties as a peace officer, and he knew he shouldn’t be relishing a confrontation, but that was exactly what he was doing. Hoping Weems would come over. Hoping he would feel compelled to say something stupid and possibly incriminating.

The hostess hurried over to the waiting men, trying to keep up with the lunch rush. She grabbed three menus from the hostess stand and began to lead them through the dining area.

Weems was halfway through the room when his head turned, scanning the crowd, and his eyes settled on Marlin. For half a second, he kept walking and there was no expression on his face at all. Then something registered. Apparently it dawned on him that he was looking at a uniformed game warden. He grinned and immediately diverted his route toward Marlin’s table. The hostess and the Bryant brothers continued on their way, unaware that Weems was no longer behind them. Weems stepped right up to Marlin’s table without any hesitation at all.

“Howdy, Officer. How’re you today?”

Marlin waited just a beat, then said, “Can I help you with something?”

“You’re the county game warden, right?”

“Says so right on his shirt,” Colby said.

Weems ignored Colby. His focus remained on Marlin. “Heard you had some trouble the other day. Somebody fired a couple of shots in your direction.”

Stay calm
, Marlin thought.
Don’t fall for his bullshit.

“That’s true,” Marlin said. “You know anything about it?”

The noise created by the other diners in their vicinity had virtually disappeared.

“Me? Heck, no,” Weems said. “Sheriff asked me the same thing, and I can’t figure out why. I wouldn’t do nothing like that. Unless I thought I could get away with it.” Weems let out a loud guffaw. “Just a joke. Everyone’s so uptight around here. Y’all need to loosen up.”

“So that wasn’t you across the ravine? Sure looked like you.”

“Then it must’ve been a good-looking guy, but it wasn’t me.”

“Glad I managed to snap a couple of photos. Grainy, but we’re waiting to see if the lab in Austin can bump up the quality. Amazing what they can do nowadays.”

“You wouldn’t be bluffing, would you?”

“Guess we’ll see soon enough. You know anything about the assault last night at the Speedy Stop?”

Weems knitted his brow—a purposefully exaggerated gesture. “Someone got assaulted? Well, shit. What’s this county coming to? That’s a shame, for sure, but I had nothing to do with that, either. Only thing I assaulted last night was a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.”

Colby said, “Sounds like the guy picked on a much smaller man. Someone who wouldn’t fight back. An easy target.”

Weems ignored Colby again. He said, “Anyway, I just wanted to come over here and tell you how much I appreciate the way all you law-enforcement types put your life on the line every day. I’d be a bundle of nerves if I thought someone might put a bullet in my back at any minute.”

Marlin struggled to remain cool.

Weems continued. “Even worse, what if I was out on patrol, late at night, and someone stopped by my house and paid my wife a visit? I don’t think I could—”

“You should stop right there,” Colby said. There was no mistaking the threat in his voice and the change in his body language. Coiled tight. Both hands on the table’s edge. He was saying,
You keep talking, I’m coming out of this chair to shut your mouth.

Colby was five or six inches shorter than Weems, and maybe forty pounds lighter, but Marlin’s money would be on Colby without question. Colby was hard as a rock from years of outdoor labor on his ranch, and he had a tenacity about him that meant he
always
finished what he started. Colby wasn’t one to go looking for fights—despite his occasional temper—but, over the years, he’d been involved in a handful of brawls that were unavoidable. Marlin had seen several. Most of them were one-punch affairs. Colby was quick and amazingly powerful. He punched hard enough to do serious, lasting damage. Weems could end up with a broken jaw before he even managed to make a fist.

Maybe Weems had an intuition that told him to ease off, or maybe he wasn’t quite as bold as he liked to appear, but he didn’t accept Colby’s unspoken challenge. Instead, he finally looked at Colby and said, “Aw, hey, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. I was just letting this here warden know what a great job he’s doing.”

Now the entire restaurant was dead quiet. The Bryant brothers were on the far side of the room, seated at a table, staying put, not coming to back up their friend.

“Well, now, that’s awful nice of you,” Colby said. “And since my friend
is
such a dedicated peace officer, he maintains a certain level of professionalism at all times. That means he can’t just speak his mind whenever he runs across some asshole.” Now it was Colby’s turn to grin. “But I can. So let’s be clear about something. Whoever fired those shots is the worst kind of coward. Total gutless scumbag. But it wasn’t you, was it? You’re not playing some sort of game where you’re pretending like it wasn’t you, but you really want everyone to think it
was
you, right? Because that would be even more cowardly than taking those shots in the first place. No, sir, with you being such a staunch supporter of game wardens, I’m guessing you agree that the shooter is a piece of human garbage, don’t you?”

Marlin almost laughed. Colby had just called Weems a coward and a piece of garbage to his face, and everybody in the room knew it. It was obvious that Weems was trying to come up with a snappy reply, but it appeared he couldn’t think of one. He had a pained smirk on his face, but the malevolence in his eyes, directed toward Colby, was unmistakable.

Finally, he said, “Guess I’ll let you boys have your lunch in peace.”

“That would be swell,” Colby said. “And if you happen to hear anything more about the lowlife turd in question, I’m sure you’ll let the sheriff know.”

Weems didn’t even respond, but simply turned and made his way to the table where the Bryant brothers were seated. After about a minute, the other customers resumed their conversations.

“That was fun,” Colby said.

“I appreciate it,” Marlin said.

“No problem.”

“But you also just threw a rock at a hornets’ nest.” Marlin said. “No telling what he’ll do.”

Colby opened his mouth, then changed his mind. Marlin knew him well enough to know what he’d almost said.
That guy? All talk.
Or something similar. But Colby was smart enough to know that wasn’t exactly true.

“Just watch your back, okay?” Marlin said. “You made him look like a jerk. Guys like that hold a grudge.”